Page 45 of What You Never Knew

She shakes her head. “How can she still be fucking with us even when she’s dead?”

Because she’s our mother, I reply. Her blood mixed and running through our veins, her influence blanketing across our consciousness, her twisted version of love a stake right through our hearts. Only bloodletting, lobotomy, and a heart transplant can exorcise them out.

“And now here I am, talking to my dead sister like some kind of nutcase.” June roughly wipes the tears away. She pushes herself up off the floor, moving right through me. Once again I feel her as she goes, her warmth, her smell, her feelings—all of them at once.

Pushing the dress all the way off her body, she goes to the closet and hangs it up, then gets down on all fours in her bra and underwear to clean up the mess she’s made.

I watch her slowly crawl around half-naked, the bones of her spine rolling up and down as she moves, her face tearstained, her eyes red, painfully vulnerable and alone. My helplessness rips through me, the need to be there with her a choke hold. Can I die a second time from this kind of pain?

JUNE

I get up off the floor and leave the room, which now reeks of my mother’s face cream and perfume after the bottles broke when I wiped her dresser out. I actually made it worse in there; now my mother’s presence is inescapable.

Displays of temper like that are not my style, nor is dressing up like my mother to fool old ladies or seeing apparitions of my dead sister. I really am losing it. Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, I might be one day away from putting an ax through the door and saying, Here’s Juney.

I’m just pulling a sundress over my head when I hear a knock at the door. My heart jumps into my throat. It must be Ezra, coming to make up. “Coming,” I call out, as I quickly brush some powder across my face to hide the fact that I’ve been crying.

At the bottom of the stairs, the heart that was in my throat only seconds ago sinks all the way down into my gut—heavy with disappointment. It’s not Ezra standing there in the living room but Leslie Swann. She’s wearing a wide-brimmed straw sun hat pushed down over her gray curls, a dirty white tank top, and wild- print parachute pants.

“Ah June,” she says, with a strange breathlessness. “So sorry to barge in on you. Didn’t think you’d mind too much, though, as you did the same to me just the other day.” She laughs in an effort to lessen the slight, but I stay straight-faced, refusing to give her anything.

Taking her sun hat off, she fluffs out her curls, sending a whiff of perspiration and lavender my way, her bracelets jangling. “The place certainly is run-down after all of those years on its own, isn’t it?” She glances around the room with disdain.

“What do you want, Leslie?” I just can’t play nice, not after what Ezra told me about her. Not after the morning I’ve had.

She looks shocked at my bluntness but smiles through it. “I was hoping we might sit down again, have a cup of tea?”

“I don’t think so.” My lack of hospitality turns her smile to pursed lips, as though she’s eaten something sour. “Why did you come here, Leslie?”

“Well, I guess I’ll get right to the point, then, since we’re clearly not doing niceties today.”

“Please do,” I encourage, the anger building in me with each second that she’s still here.

“I’ve reconsidered your offer, June. The one to repay your mother’s debt.” I stare back at her blankly, not saying anything. The silence is uncomfortable, and she grips the brim of her sun hat so tightly it folds over. “I only want it for healing purposes, June, on both sides. You’d feel better; I would feel better. I’ll donate it, of course. To a favorite charity of my mother’s. You can pay me in installments. I mean, I—”

I put a hand up to stop her from blabbering on. “I think you need to get the fuck off my property, Leslie.”

My words actually cause her to gasp and put a hand to her chest. “My goodness, June. Where on earth is this hostility coming from? Surely we are more civilized than this.”

“But you see, I don’t consider you civilized, Leslie. I consider you to be vengeful, petty, and a liar. Ezra told me all about your attempts to destroy Avril Island. So I’m sure you can understand why I will feel the need to call the police if you are not off my property in the next three minutes.”

Her eyes go wide with shock, and she begins to shuffle her way backward toward the door. “That’s just ridiculous, me trying to destroy Avril Island. You should consider the source, June. You really should. Ezra Keen may be all smiles and handsome on the outside, but you don’t know what lies underneath that shiny veneer. Don’t fall for it, June. I warn you. ”

“And you should get off my property.” I take a step toward her.

“You are as bad as your mother, June Bennett. A menace, all of you—your sister, your whole family,” she spits at me.

“You watch what you say about my sister, Leslie,” I say, slowing walking toward her, forcing her to move faster. “She was nothing but wonderful. Not a menace in the slightest. Me, on the other hand, I won’t argue that title.”

She pushes through the screen door. “I wish my mother had burned this place to the ground back when she had the chance; you would have gotten what you deserve,” she yells at me, before turning and scurrying down the stairs.

I stand on the verandah until she’s pulled away from the dock and is only a speck on the lake beyond. Then I go into the kitchen and, with shaky hands, open a bottle of wine and pour myself a very full glass.

Leslie’s words about Ezra ring loudly through my head—consider the source, what lies beneath the shiny veneer, don’t fall for it, I warn you. I picture his angry face, his harsh words spoken to me at his house earlier in the day. It was a side of Ezra I’d never seen before. Could there be other sides unknown to me, hidden away, ready to surprise?

I quickly try to wash away the thought with a gulp of wine, thinking briefly of the plan I made only this morning to drink less, to stay clearheaded. That plan is quickly discarded once the wine reaches my lips, travels down my throat, and enters my bloodstream, softening the edges just enough to keep me wanting more.

I wake up groggy, my eyes sticky with sleep and a film of sweat on my body from the stuffy room. I forgot to put the fan on. It’s already well into the day; I can tell from how hot it is in here. I drank a lot of wine last night, as planned. I may actually have gone overboard in an attempt to drown every thought in my head and get some silence. I can smell it sweating out of my pores now.